Southern Hoe Cake Recipe
Hoe cake seems to be a rather elusive recipe, even among southerners. Apart from my own, I have only one friend whose family still makes it.
Even among us though, the variations are vast. His family makes it using corn meal as seems to be the custom among recipes found on the web. My family’s version uses flour and produces a bread much like buttermilk biscuits in flavor only with a lighter and fluffier texture and crispy outsides.
Either way you look at it, hoe cake is revered by those who know of it. I am sure its origins sprang forth much like the rest of our southern dishes – too little time and too few ingredients. It is a simple food to make but will easily take over the starring role at your dinner table. Once you see how simple it is to make, it will take a starring role in your dinner preparations as well!
I made hoe cake for my in laws for the first time this past weekend. Even though they are from Georgia, they had never had it either! It was requested and made the following meal as well, where a pint and a half of fresh apple butter was ate along with it!
I can honestly say that this is a rare recipe, having searched and not found it anywhere online. I do hope you will try it and guarantee that if you like biscuits, you’ll LOVE hoe cake.
Ingredients for this are a cinch. Self rising flour (White Lily, of course!), vegetable shortening, and whole milk. If you don’t have self rising flour where you are, go here for the formula of how to make your own.
To two cups of self rising flour, add 1/2 cup of shortening.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Pour a thin layer of vegetable oil in the bottom of a cake pan. This is where the old folks use a cast iron skillet but at the time of this tutorial Mama had yet to hand down a cast iron skillet to me so I figured a cake pan with a wee bit of wear on it is just as good ~grins~. Either way, you’re going to add enough oil to cover the bottom of your cake pan and then stick it in the oven while it preheats.
*I am happy to report that I now have a cherish cast iron skillet from my Mama but I still go back and forth between a cake pan and cast iron when making this (whichever on I grab first) so don’t you dare go feeling bad for whichever one you choose to use.
You want this oil to be good and hot.
It should look like this. You can add about a fourth of a cup more of milk if need be. What we are making here is soupy biscuit batter.
Bake at 425 degrees until browned on top, fifteen to twenty minutes.
Remove from oven when it looks like this and turn out onto a plate so it is upside down.
All that brown is the crispy bread. This is SO GOOD! Cut it any way you choose and dig in!
Ingredients
- 2 cups self rising flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425. Pour a thin layer of oil to cover the bottom of an eight inch round cake pan and place in oven to heat.
- Cut shortening into flour well. Pour milk in and stir until wet.
- Pour into well heated pan and bake for fifteen to twenty minutes or until browned.
- Invert onto plate.
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Posted by Christy Jordan
on Jul 8 2008. Filed under Breads, FEATURED Southern Favorites!, Southern Plate Kids.
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That looks so easy! When it’s finished baking, is the texture more corn breadish or biscuity? And would it be good to smush up into a big bowl of collard greens or black-eyed peas?
LOL at your reply. unless you’re a Yankee, cornbread goes with peas n greens. biscuits and hoecokes go with eggs, bacon, ham, fried chicken, food like that.
I see you asked your question last year but I would still like to reply in case you didn’t try it. This Hoe Cake is like a biscuit and very good. We use buttermilk in place of whole milk because we just like the taste and texture better. I live in South Mississippi and it’s good with peas. If 2-3 people are eating I cut the recipe in half.
I was skeptical of this recipe, but I longed for the taste of a hoe cake like my grandmother used to make for me for breakfast. So I tried it & I’m glad I did! I will make it again, with a few variations. I made it just as suggested in the above recipe. Next time I will, put a pinch of salt in the batter & I will bake it on top of the stove in my cast iron skillet. My grandmother made hers on top of the stove. The one I made didn’t bake through enough for me and I let it stay in the oven probably 45-50 min. It did have most attributes of my grandmothers though.
I grew up in Virginia and this is the hoecake we ate.
Ummmmm!
mmm.Hoe cakes! I had my first Hoe Cake at Lady and Sons Restaurant(Paula Deen)!! Yumm!!!
You profile states your blog is new..it looks like its been around for years..packed full of info!I just love it! I love love love southern food, but my butt..not so much!LOL
Thanks for stopping by my blog..I am glad you enjoy it! Stop by anytime!!!!I will be back to yours!!!
Leslie:
Wow, thank YOU for stopping by MY blog!! I love yours and have already subscribed!
Your compliments mean so much! You’ve made my day and I feel like I’m doing something right! YAY!
Looks delicious. I love biscuits and this does look like one big biscuit – with apple butter it must be amazing!
Welcome to The Foodie Blogroll!
My aunt use to make hoe cakes in a cast iron skillet and she would sometimes ass chunks of fat back or cracklin to the mixture talk about good and if we as kids at the time ate it plain we would pour syrup over the cakes.Those were the days
Thank you so much Leftover Queen!! I am THRILLED that you stopped by my blog! It is divine….but looks like I’m going to have to do a little explaining on apple butter to folks who haven’t heard of it! Hehe! I have thought about making more and mailing samples out via USPS…….
I have never heard if this. But not being from the south why would I ?? LOL
BUT I think i will try it.
Now I know Those Cast iron are supposed to rock (plus the old add iron to food is great) but I prefer ceramic bake ware myself.
Or stone. I have bought my share of Crappy stoneware. but I have a few loved and abused pieces!
I wonder on this one, if the stoneware would absorb the oil though? Better try it on the glazed ceramic to be safe!
Me, too. I’ve done every imaginable thing to cast iron, and it will rust no matter what I do to it. I threw the iron skillet away.
VisionWare is my fave. Works great!
Well cast iron is the best for hoe cake and the taste is totally different, as is corn bread. my mother made us hoecakes when I was a kid and I am 77 years old and they had been around for a while. I make them once in a great while now. Or up until about 5 years ago when I lost my husband. He liked them, He was mexican and a very good cook himself. He was born and raised here in CA. an I was born and raised in South Carolina. He had never eaten thickened gravey with biscuts an I made them and he loved them. You bet good old southern cooking is soooooo good and my husbands mexican food was so good. (better than the mexican resturants serve) Well good eating folks. Joan
Cast iron rules! The reason it rusts is because you are either putting it away wet OR you are washing it in soapy water, which washes off all the seasoning of the skillet. First, you season it (google it) and second, never wash it again with soap. If food is stuck on it then heat the empty (dirty) skillet past boiling and then add a half cup or so of water to it (as you would to deglaze it) then, while the water is boiling off, scrub the build-up with a wooden spatula. Pour that water out, rinse it, dry it, (remember it may still be very hot) and oil it down. It will not rust, and you will not remove the seasoning … Uncle Charlie
Pinky, I prefer anything but cast iron as well! Although that is something I won’t be proclaiming too loudly where I live!
I just bake mine in a metal cake pan but a glazed ceramic dish will work fine. I have made it before in a Longaberger pie plate!
Happy Thursday Christy. Tonight I am making homemade salsibury steak and gravy in the crockpot. I will be adding the recipe soon. Its just to darn hot to turn on that oven (104 degrees today). I needed a bread to go with my meal. I know i said i wouldnt turn on that oven but I am making this hoe cake with dinner tonight i cant help it. I have a cast iron skillet and a cake pan i will decide later on which to use. I am keeping to my cast iron skillet for my corn bread i just gotta stick to that. I will let you know how it goes. I am so excited. Carson is a biscuit mand so i am hoping he likes this.
TINA!!
YAY! I hope you loved the hoe cake! I think I know that our food tastes are so much alike, you likely did!
It also makes good drop biscuits. Just use a baking sheet that has a bit of a side on it and pour a little oil on that to heat, then drop big old spoons of the batter onto it and bake. Makes these ugly lumpy mounds that taste out of this world.
Salisbury steak and gravy in the crock pot……yeah you better be posting that soon little missy!!!!
Christy I made your recipe just like i said i would. It was out of this world good. A new favorite in our house. Thank you so much for posting this wonderful recipe. Now I just need to make your biscuit recipe next. LOL I wish we lived closer we could do some great cooking together they would have to roll us out of the kitchen sideways after preparing and eating all this awesome food.
I must say, I love your blog!
I am an Idaho Yankee who married a man who was born in Tuscaloosa, AL and raised in Mississippi. He has a love for all things Southern cooked. I am so glad to be able to finally find a recipe for Hoe cake. After 21 years of marriage, he will be absolutely floored that I can finally make this southern treat for him.
I have perfected several things that he loves, but Hoe cake was the elusive recipe, you are right.
Thank you so much for your blog, you are among my bookmarded favorites now, what a treasure of recipes, keep up the good work!!
Tina: I am so thrilled you liked it as much as I do and am even more thrilled that you made it! Definitely sideways….definitely!
Mary Lu: Thank you so very much for commenting! I’m thrilled you found Southern Plate and hope I can keep making you happy and bringing you back for more! If you have any special requests just give me a holler!
I appreciate your kind words more than you know!!!!
Thank you!!
Christy
Oh my goodness! This was soooo good! I would say that it tastes like a KFC biscuit but not as dense and SO much better!
Thanks so much!!!
Yummy! I grew up eating Hoe Cake and homemade plum jelly. You just can’t beat it.
Becky: Thank you! I am so thrilled you liked it!!!!
Rose: Plum jelly! OMG YES! I have been eating hoe cake lately with my crock pot apple butter, but plum jelly is divine!
I just found your site – love the recipes, many are similar to my own! my family made hoe cakes when I was young, but it was always rumored in our house to be the same thing as flapjacks (corn bread that you fry in a cast iron skillet like pancakes). I’m totally trying this recipe tonight! Sounds delicious!
Rachie!: I’m so glad you found us! Welcome to Southern Plate!!
Do let me know if you try it, I love my feedback!!
I have a few hundred recipes still left to do, so check back often!
Christy
I was raised in South Ms. and was blessed to have a Grandmother that cooked some of the best southern foods, hoe cake being one of my fav. I’ve tried making it but never had luck.(I think it has something to do with not using lard.lol) I tried your recipe and it was like being back in her kitchen again. Oh and it was so good with my chicken gumbo! Thanks for bringing those wonderful memories and recipe back into my life!!!
Doubly Blessed: Thank you so much for that story. It means so very much for me to hear things like that.
Please contact me via email. I’d love to speak with you and make sure I put up some more recipes from your childhood!
Christy@southernplate.com
This has become one of our favorite recipes! So, we tried this today with about 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese mixed in (added just before the milk). Holy cow! Christy, if you have not tried adding cheese to this hoe cake, you have to do it, right now!
OH WOW!!
That is one of those “DUH” moments!
Why didn’t I think of that! I bet it is awesome!!
I have a quickie supper already going tonight but I will definitely do that this week, my husband loves cheese so much that his grandmother used to say he “had rat blood in him”! hehe
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
christy
I made this last night and it was so delicious! It was part of breakfast this morning and will be part of dinner tonight! I definitely will be reading your blog from now on.
Yumm! My grandmother used to make these, and we would eat them with fresh fig preserves. However, her’s were a little thinner and made in a cast iron skillet, but same recipe made with flour.
Can’t wait to try this.
Hey Lauren! I’m so glad you liked it!!
It is a delicious breakfast bread!!! I save my leftovers (if I have any) for breakfast too!!!
Thank you so much for reading!!
Hey Kyle!!! If you gave me this WITH Fig preserves, I’d think I had died and gone to heaven!! I LOVE FIGS! My grandaddy used to have a fig bush and he would pick a big old bowl of them when I went to visit him and we’d sit on the couch and eat them all together.
Its so good to have you here!!!
Oh, my mama makes hers in a cast iron skillet, too! I am going to start cooking in cast iron, honest!!
Christy
This is the best. I made mine in my cast iron skillet. Yummmm. Oh and served with your peach preserves recipe. Well should I say anymore? Thanks for all of the great recipes.
I haven’t had this since I was a girl, when my best friend’s mother would make it for Sunday dinner–not supper, you understand, dinner! Thanks for bringing back some wonderful memories. I’ll be making some hoe cake for my family.
This is the closest I’ve seen to my Mother’s hoecake. The difference is she cooks it in a cast iron skillet on the stove. She uses bacon grease – just covering the bottom of the skillet, then drizzles a little around the edges of the skillet as needed while cooking. One of my favorites! Great site!!!
Hey Beth! Thank you so much!! Wow, this AND peach preserves, you got a lucky family!!! I bet you’re an amazing cook!!!
Bbrock Dinner, I know exactly what you mean! No one has supper on Sundays anyway
. Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment, so glad to have you here!!
Anonymous My mother makes hers in a cast iron skillet as well! I am proud to report that I have been reformed! I am now making mine in a cast iron skillet!! My matriarchs would be so proud!
Thank you all for reading Southern Plate!!!
Gratefully,
Christy
OMG!! I almost came to tears when I came across this recipe! My Grandmother (Grandmama Margaret Jackson, God Bless her soul!)made this type of Hoe Cake (with flour and not cornmeal) for me almost every morning before school and she also served it with apple butter!!! I cannot THANK YOU ENOUGH for sharing the recipe as I thought it was gone forever!
Oh yeah……to add to my above comment…..my Grandmama use to make it on top of the stove in a cast iron skillet. THANKS AGAIN! Teresa
I’m gonna try this too!
John
I know I’m probably stupid, but what’t's with the profile. I registered with you, but found no place to login. I guess I’ll just be anonymous John.???
Do you think this would work with soy milk?
i'm SO glad the link to this recipe works again!
this is a VERY hard to find, authentic recipe, and i spent an embarrassing amount of time earlier this year trying to track down your archived page & recipe on the internets in its entirety, since i foolishly didn't copy it down before–
you're a peach to share it, thanks!
Hello! I so much loved your recipe that I end up blogging it! Thanks for sharing the hoecake recipe! I loved it!
Love the recipe – will try this weekend. We’ll be using rice or soy milk because hubby is lactose intolerant. Thanks for posting it! Vikki http://www.food-self-sufficiency.blogspot.com
I made this last night and don’t know if I will ever make regular biscuits as a dinner bread again. I had the last of it this morning with a bowl of Aldi brand Lucky Charms. It was honestly one of the best breads I had ever tasted in my life.
Southern Plate I was curious if you saw this article reprint from the NY Times in 1908. While it is w/ corn meal I thought oyu might get a chuckle if oyu had not already seen it.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9E0DE4D71631E233A25753C3A96E9C946997D6CF
I have done something very similar but I use bacon fat instead of veggie oil. Veggies are what food eats LOL! Besides everyone loves bacon. My family tradition also used flour because the corn meal kept getting bugs. And we baked it also instead of frying. When they were fried it was usually used or tacos.
Hello! Just love the site, been here many many times. I made this a month of so ago and just forgot to get on and post a comment.
Anyway, I came out so great. My husband loved it, guy ate like 3/4 of it, no joke. Its has not become a bread replacement staple and he asks for it all the time. Thanks for the wonderful recipe.
Thanks Again and Keep Smilin
Colleen
Oooh, I am so with your husband! I think I’ll make it tomorrow now that you made me think of it again! Have you ever tried it with fresh apple butter on it? My in laws just love it with my crock pot apple butter – which is sooooooooooooo easy to make its embarassing. lol.
Thank you, Colleen, for taking the time to comment and for your kindness!!
Gratefully,
Christy
I am a Georgia Girl (Go Dawgs) born and raised. My grandma’s hoe cakes were small and had a little cornmeal.
She tells that the name “hoe” cake came from workers working the crop fields and heating up a hoe on an open fire and making these for lunch. At least that’s her tale!
I just loved all her stories.
cast iron skillets makes the best fried chicken and gravy and have used my skillets for years
My wife happened on this site earlier today and mentioned it to me because I’ve been trying to get her to make hoecakes for 42 years (to no avail) I’ve now read through all 44 comments. Can’t respond to all individually but will touch on some of the points made.
If you are a true hoecake aficionado you just cannot make a proper hoecake without a cast iron skillet. To keep it from rusting, you NEVER wash it. NEVER! Wipe it out with a towel and it’s good to go. After a while, the skillet will actually build up a crust on the outside because of the oils that work through the cast iron.
Now a question for you folks. I was raised in the south (NW. Fla.) and we had either biscuit hoecake (above) or cornbread hoecake for almost every meal depending on what we were eating.
However, my memama cooked her hoecakes on TOP of the stove. When cooked, they were about the same physical size as the one above but the top and bottom was a heavy crust (from the frying). Does anyone else make them this way?
Her recipe seemed similar. Lard, buttermilk, flour. She would mix as above and kneed into a large ball. She would then put than in the frying pan, flatten it out until it touched all the way around and let it bake on the stove top. Flipping once and then on to the table. It was never sliced. We just broke off a piece as needed. My favorite snack was a large chuck of hoecake, homemade butter and homemade CANE syrup.
Her corn meal version was much different. Mix the cornmeal and butter milk into a batter resembling pancake batter and then fry it like a pancake. When finished, it resembled a plate-sized pancake about an inch thick in the center and crispy around the very edges. I never cared for it my self preferring the biscuit hoecake.
Anyone else remember hoecakes like these?
Now a question for you folks. I was raised in the south (NW. Fla.) and we had either biscuit hoecake (above) or cornbread hoecake for almost every meal depending on what we were eating?
Yes in answer to above question. I also was born and raised in NW Fla East Coast. We never did the cornbread on top of the stove but did and do the biscuit hoecake. Cast iron were and is the choice in my families cooking. I agree NEVER wash cast iron, however there are times you can’t simply wipe out like after gravy. But you can put the skillet under HOT water (never cold) and wipe it with a soft scrubbie or dishcloth that have NOT had SOAP in them. Soap will totally ruin cast iron, talk about rust you’ll have it.
A couple other tips about cast iron for those who might need it. It helps in preventing rust if you can hang your cast iron, if you can’t then put a piece of wax paper between those that are stacked.
Hope this helped
P.S.
Sorry can’t think of everything
You also want to dry your cast iron by putting it back on the stove untill the water dries, (to long or to hot will burn off your coating) let it cool down and put it away.
About cast iron skillets – there is a trick to working with them.
If you buy an old used one, literally put it into a fire (fire pit is best but fireplace works) to burn off the old grunge. Let it cool and then put it on the stove to heat, rub it ALL OVER with bacon grease to “season” it. Now it is ready to use. NEW skillets will also need to be seasoned before you use them.
To clean a skillet (or dutch over, or any cast iron ware), wash in HOT water but NEVER use soap. Wipe it dry, put it on the stove, heat it up (the rest of the moisture will evaporate), and rub the inside – bottom and sides – with bacon grease. I use a papertowel and keep a jar of bacon grease in the refrigeratior for this purpose. That re-seasons it. When you pull it out the next time to cook with, give it a quick swipe with a clean papertowel and you’ll be ready to cook.
works every time!
Oh, how I remember the cornmeal hoecakes! I grew up on a large farm in NC and my mother made these hoecakes for supper after a long hard day of working in the fields. Usually when she made them we had only the hoecakes and milk (from the family cow, of course).
I am not absolutely certain but I believe she made them with cornmeal, egg, buttermilk and lard – really just a more watery corn bread recipe fried on top of stove to a crispy brown.
This brings back fond memories and I am going to try them very soon.
Yes the flour version hoe cake is exactly as my g-ma made them. Cool.
Mama used to make hoecake on top of the stove in a steel pan. The dough looked like biscuit dough and she patted it into the pan. After awhile, she flipped it and when done it had brown spots on it and looked somewhat like a big fat soft tortilla. We ate it w/ pinto beans or grape jelly. Yum! She came from Taylor County, Fl.
This sounds just like my mom’s hoecake! Most recipes online seem to be for the cornmeal variety, and even Paula Deen’s recipe is different than what I remember (she and my mom are the same age from the same area and even sound alike). I’m going to try this if my mom doesn’t email me back with her recipe in time.
My mother-in-law cooked what she called hoecake but she cooked it in a skillet on top of the stove. Have you ever tried this?Y What would I need to change to try this? Yours is the 1st recipe I’ve found using flour. Thanks,
Mim
You don’t need to change anything!! This is the recipe I’ve seen my mom use snd she always cooked it on the top of the stove ( as I now do) We have never used any thing except cast iron. I use the size 0 flat skillet (no sides just a small rim) easier to turn. Find a large rounded spatula to turn it over with if you can’t find one I started out just sliding it to a plate then turn the skillet over the plate and flip.
Also greatful to see the recipe brings back so many memories.
P.S.
Forgot, it can be made with water instead of milk, not as good of course but there were times when we had no money for milk.
That is correct we always used water. My grandmother was all about conserving.
Mim,
my grandmother cooked our hoecakes made with flour on top the stove as well. If memory serves correctly only a tbsp or two of liquid goes in and you should have a dough consistency product that you press in the pan mold to it.
Grandma’s version was slightly different from yours. Her Grandma learned to make them during the war between the states. My Grandma made a few minor adjustments, to suit her own style of cooking. Grandma rarely used shortening. She used lard, butter or bacon fat, just as her Grandma had. She added more milk than you do, so the batter was more liquid, though still an extremely thick and lumpy batter. She started it on the stove top. After she poured the batter into the hot pan, sometimes she would sprinkle the top with cornmeal. When the edges were nicely browned, she flipped it and put it in the oven.
I am soooo excited to have found a recipe! I am of course from the south (Northeast FL) My great-grandmother who is half Cherokee would make this every day no matter what. My family before i was born was very poor and often times that would be all they would have to eat. It was always made in a cast iron skillet and just left on the stove in the skillet for you to get as you wanted–just tear it apart, not to be cut. My dad would often tell stories about how he would have a hoe cake sandwich to take with him to school–they were hoe cake and lettuce, that’s it nothing else. My mom’s family also made it but not every day, and they called it “daisy bread” but it was the same thing. I remember eating it a lot and always loving it, I remember it being like a sweet biscuit and crunchy. Made a big pot of beans last night and don’t care what folks say, aint nothing better then the hoe cake and beans!I made a trip to Paula Deen’s restaurant when I heard she had hoe cake but was so bummed with the corn meal pancakes!
My dad was born December 1903 in South Mississippi. Many times over the years I’ve heard him tell how as a boy he and his sibblings carried hoe cakes with fat back tucked inside a syrup can for lunch to school.
I looooooovvvveeee this recipe!
Wwwaaahhh I broke mine all up trying to get it out of the pan lol, so it was jumbled up
Still good but needs salt. Hubby suggested using bacon grease in the pan next time 
I used a cast iron skillet, I will definitely try this one again, would be yummy with some strawberry jelly 
Carm
Next time you make them use more grease….
Thanks for the recipe. I’m from California and had never heard of hoe cakes until I read our book club selection, “March” by Geraldine Brooks. I learned (from the computer) that the batter used to be poured onto heated hoes and baked that way. Also learned they are sometimes called “Johnny Cakes”. Johnny was an abbreviation for journey. Evidently these were commonly taken on journeys……back in the day….
Our club will be meeting soon and I promised to bring these cakes. And, like the book, I will serve them on a tin plate. I doubt if anyone has eaten them, including me, so it will be a real treat!
Thanks again, Christy Jordan!
(Oh, by the way, iron skillets are supposed to be good for you because you do get iron from them.)
I’ve heard of Hoe cake and didn’t realize what it was until now!
My recipe is called Biscuit bread and is done the same way in a cast iron skillet. I’ve just learned something today!
BTW, it looks really good!